________________
BOOK I: THE PRINCIPLE OF KNOWLEDGE
231
then devouring all the knowable appearances which abide in the things, with the aid of the manifoldness of its efficacy, knows and sees. So that, as concerns the knower, who develops an activity (yoga) of manifold efficacy, his entrance into the things attains just as much reality as his non-entrance.
Now he explains how knowledge is located in the things:
30. As the sapphire-gem, placed in milk, by its own splendour constantly dominates (the colour of the milk or pervades the whole of it with its lustre, so is knowledge related to the objects.
Just as the sapphire-gem, located in milk, is observed to dominate or pervade it constantly with the mass of its splendour, so see we that consciousness (samvedana), which, because it is not separated from the self, receives the character of the self in its function of agent, constantly in its function of instrument, i.e. in its character of knowledge, pervades all the knowable appearances (as effects) of all the objects (as causes). So, when it is metaphorically said, by reason of their relation of cause and effect, that "knowledge, dominating or pervading the objects, abides (in them),” there is no contradiction.
Now he explains how the objects abide in knowledge:
31. If the objects do not exist in knowledge, then knowledge is not all-pervasive or omnipresent; alternatively, if knowledge is allpervasive or omnipresent, how should the objects not exist or abide in knowledge?
If all the objects do not appear in knowledge, by penetrating into it and committing to it their own complete knowable appearances, then we must agree that knowledge is not omnipresent. But if you agree that it is omnipresent, then the immediate (sakshat) causes of their own respective appearances, which are fit-objects-forconsciousness (samvedya) and may be compared to reflected-objects, coming down to the surface of the mirror of consciousness, are the indirect (paramparaya) causes of appearances-in-our-consciousness (samvedya), which appearances may be compared to the reflectionimages (when located in the mirror of consciousness). So then it is ascertained (read katham na) that the objects abide in knowledge.
Now he explains the complete isolation (viviktatva) of (the Omniscient) who sees and determines everything; for, although there is a mutual activity (anyonya-vrtti) of knower and objects, yet neither does he take hold of them, nor let them loose, nor evolve into them:
